I return to you from a short break! I hope you all enjoyed
Rosestorm sitting in last week. I'm sure you're all quite interested in
the craziness at E3 this week, which sadly didn't include confirmations
of Last Story or Xenoblade for North America. I'm
still hopeful though. Right now I'm STILL trying to finish up Avadon, as wall as dabbling with Infamous and Hunted. Yes, that is a whole lot of
Western RPG (Infamous is
almost an RPG in my book), but of course I'm still playing plenty of Trails in the Sky and Tactics Ogre when time allows.
Enough about that, let's see what you you readers are up to...

The Letters

Persona 3 - The Censors Will Hate
This One

They should make 'Persona 3.5:
Junpei's Super Happy Fun Shadow-Slaying Hour' for the Wii. In
this game, you play goofy Persona-user Junpei Iori as he quests to slay
as many shadows as possible to act macho for the ladies. As in its
predecessor you climb a lot of stairs, but in this iteration you summon
your Persona by pointing the Wiimote at your head and pressing the A
button. Believe it, or don't!

Cheers,
Paladia

Wheels

This is a really strange idea, but I have to see, this is a
controversy nightmare waiting to happen. I can see the headline right
now, "Wii game teaches kids how to commit suicide." I assume you were
going for some kind of light-hearted take on the series here, but I'm
not quite sure how that would go. This could be a pretty funny game,
but I'd like to see you expand upon the idea some more! What sort of
crazy mini-games can you come up with?

Spider-Infested Bread

Yo Wheelio,

So I have this problem, and since you've been playing Avadon, perhaps
you can help me. See, I used to like Spiderweb Software. I
played some Avernum games
back in the '90s. But as the company
fell farther and farther behind in graphics technology, screenshots
from new games started to cause an odd Pavlovian reaction in me.
I know that Avadon has
upgraded its graphics to be at least on par with
stuff from 2001, but every time I look at a Spiderweb Software
screenshot and
see a misshapen loaf of bread in the inventory, I
immediately close my browser window and refuse to pay any more
attention to the game. Am I shallow? Do I have a
problem? Oh Spiderweb Software, why can't I love you like I used
to? And why do you always have that cursed loaf of bread in your
games?

Help me,
Ocelot

Wheels

I think you have an unhealthy obsession with bread. I mean, I'll give
you that those screenshots of the bread are incredibly terrible, but
overall the graphic style of Avadon
and their other games gets the job done. I don't think you're alone in
being somewhat turned off by the graphics, especially in an age when we
can play games like Mass Effect 2
that have an amazing graphical style. However, once you really did into
these games, you'll find that they have an incredible amount of depth,
and the graphics will slowly stop being an issue. It reminds me a bit
of the simple boards and figures people sometimes use with Dungeons and Dragons. The will
verbally provide the intricate details, just like what Spiderweb games
due with text. So I highly recommend you try and get past this little
issue and give Avadon and
the newer Avernum games a
shot!

Hex-Based Twitter

@askwheels why do so few tactical rpgs use hex grids?

-FowlSorcerous

Wheels

This is a very good question, and one
I don't really have a good answer for. Aside from war games based on
classic table top games, I can think of only one tactical rpg (Wild Arms XF) that uses a hex grid.
Perhaps developers are just too stuck in tradition to try something
different. If you look at it, other than Fire Emblem, most rpgs of this type
stick pretty closely to the formula established by Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics. Even a
recent Western game of this type, Ghost
Recon: Shadow Wars, stays away from hex grids. It's really a
shame, and it doesn't look like it's something that will change anytime
soon. At least Civilization made
the switch.

More Final Fantasy

Dear Wheels,
So I wrote in a couple weeks ago wondering if you knew anything about
Square Enix releasing FFV.
You recommended I play FFXII in
the
meantime...
but PS3 won't play it and my PS2 died long ago so it's
not going to happen any time soon.

Is this true? Are we going to see FFV,
FFVI, AND Chrono Trigger on the PSN? I sure
hope so. There's nothing like playing these classics on a big screen
with real speakers. Do you know anything about these re-releases?

-Brad

Wheels

Yes, I do believe we are going to see these games on PSN. ESRB listing
are rarely wrong, so the question is likely a matter of "when" and not
a matter of "if". I can't really vouch for the PS1 versions of these
games, given loading time issues and for Final Fantasy V, a bad translation.
If that's the only way you have to play them, or only way you can play
them on the go, they certainly aren't unplayable. I'd keep an eye out,
I'm sure they'll show up soon.

P.S. Wikipedia says that FFV did come out on the Japanese PSN, but not
yet for North America.

Wheels

That is correct, I believe all of the games you listed are available on
PSN in Japan. Personally I'm still hoping for SaGa Frontier on the U.S. PSN! I'm
probably in the minority there however.

IN CLOSING

That's it for this week! Keep the crazy sequel ideas for the contest
coming in, and I'll get them up as quickly as possible. I look forward
to see what you all come up with. Anyone want to pitch a new SaGa game?